The Shadow of the Sun (The Way of the Gods)

by Barbara Friend Ish

  She looked abruptly down, at the dangling diamond. “Wouldn’t we all.”

  I took a step towards her. I knew it was a mistake, but my feet seemed to have an agenda of their own. “You are the mora of Fíana.”

  Her head snapped up again; she fixed me with the gaze of a wounded she-wolf. “Really? On whose authority? You, who the Stone acknowledges? Who the goddess—” Her voice vanished; she glanced away, towards the stars.

  I stepped across the gallery, leaned against the relief on the inner wall. The visage of some immortal or avatar I didn’t recognize crumbled at the contact; I straightened hastily.

  “The goddess has no great love for me,” I said evenly.

  Letitia gave voice to a humorless laugh, face still turned towards the night. She will take my blood and leave my bones for the crows, she thought; my throat closed. I fought down the impulse to contradict her. It took me longer than it should have to come up with a different approach.

  “I don’t put too much stock in what happened up there,” I said finally. “Amien didn’t realize… Letitia, there are half a dozen different stones that are claimed to be the Tuaoh. Amien didn’t know what he was tapping.”

  Letitia glanced at me again. “Are you asking me to believe the goddess doesn’t speak through the Stone?”

  This was dangerous territory: I shook my head quickly. “I’m suggesting that some things the Tuaoh… does on its own, maybe. That arcane manipulation might yield unexpected results.”

  “So the Stone recognizes you, but you think the goddess doesn’t?”

  This way lay madness. “I’m suggesting the Stone’s behavior may have less to do with my presence or anyone else’s than with what Amien was doing.” I wished my heart believed it; I hoped she did. “And that you are the mora of Fíana, but—well, maybe there are things you need to do before your investiture.”

  A split-second’s image burst forth from her mind and washed past me: the interior of a trunk, a jumble of metal buried beneath jewel-encrusted robes.

  “Yes,” Letitia breathed, relaxing suddenly against the wall. “There are things I need to do.” Just as abruptly her spine tensed again, and a frown creased her face. She looked at the necklace for a long moment; the pendant swung, winking in the arcane light. I wondered about the intent of the spell or spells Amien had wrought on it, about its intended use. It isn’t a weapon, he’d said at Dianann. But rather… a tool.

  “I need to become the mora Fíana requires,” Letitia said to the stone.

  Sudden, unexpected pride for her shot through me.

  “I have been a child,” she continued, eyes still on the diamond. “I had thought simply being, and the little services I perform for the Holy Mora… that they were enough. That it was reasonable to rely on others to protect me, to attend to all the things beyond those little responsibilities in my behalf.” She looked up at me again. “I need to become the mora my mother was, and her mother.”

  I fought off the smile warring for control of my mouth. “I would say you’ve gone a very long way down that path already.”

  Letitia blew out a little, dismissive breath, almost smiling. She folded the necklace into one fist and fixed me with an analytical stare. Her eyes caught the arcane light, rippling with a glow of gold; something nameless skipped up my spine, and for the first time in days I saw the alien priestess in her, the avatar of some goddess far more benevolent than the One she served. This was a mora anyone would follow, a being whose gaze could illuminate the innermost reaches of a man. The habitual shields I held around myself dissolved.

  “Tell me true, Ellion Tellan,” she said; and though the Tanaan do not practice sorcery anymore, I felt the words as a binding on me. “Would you be mor?”

  My breath knotted in my throat, blocking the lie I should have told. I was powerless against the need to look away.

  “Yes,” I said softly to the stars beyond the alcove. “But not of Fíana.”

  “Ahhh,” Letitia breathed.

  I swallowed. My throat was still impassably tight.

  “In that case, there is something I would ask of you,” she continued after a moment.

  Again I faltered, and hated myself for the weakness. Finally I summoned the will to meet her eyes.

  “Teach me what a mora should know of warfare,” she said. “I must learn to contribute to my own defense; I must be able to make decisions and to see when my advisors are wrong. I’m not so foolish—” Her voice caught. “As to imagine that I can persuade you to serve me always. Though I know I would already be dead ten times over, were you not here.”

  “You want to learn strategy?” I said.

  “And I must be competent with the sword,” she answered.

  That was a lost cause. I knew without crossing my blade with hers that she would never be able to defeat a competent warrior. I should restrict what I attempted with her to defensive tactics.

  But that, of course, was a prior admission of defeat. No tactic, however clever and safe, can serve a warrior past the point of exhaustion. The only true defense is winning.

  I inclined my head. “Mora Letitia Ériu a Fíana, I will teach you all I can in the time we have together. Strategy you will have ample opportunity to learn along the way, and it will be my pleasure to instruct you. Weapons training will be for evenings, or other times of safety and rest. But—”

  “Ellion—”

  “But,” I said again. “You will agree to remain behind the lines or within the formation during engagements, and let your knights do their work.”

  She sagged like an airship with the fire extinguished. “While they continue to bear all the risk.”

  “To do otherwise puts them at greater risk,” I rejoined.

  “And when I am competent?” she said.

  If, I thought. A very great If. “When you are competent, then we will decide together how to deploy your resources. Mora Letitia Ériu a Fíana, I offer you my service under these terms.”

  She gazed at me in silence for a moment. Still I saw the priestess in her, and tried again to steel myself against the impulse to surrender.

  “Lord Ellion Tellan, holder of secrets, speaker of none, I accept your offer. You will have my devotion to your tutelage, my trust, my gratitude, and any other boon you would name.” She glanced away. “But one.”

  “That boon I would never ask,” I said softly. “I know too well what it would cost.”

  “That I believe, my lord,” she said, just as softly.

  This time, finally, I had the presence of mind to protect the reputation of the Tana with whom I’d found myself alone. I sent Letitia back to the temple’s topmost chamber ahead of me, reasoning she was the one whose protracted absence would raise concerns. By the time I returned to the chamber, most of the knights were asleep, and Letitia already lay curled in her bedroll. She met my eyes as I walked in, calmer than I could recall ever seeing her, then collapsed almost instantly into sleep. I unpacked my bedroll and settled in an empty patch near the door.

  From this angle, the Tuaoh was a massive, grey-on-grey silhouette against the stars. The stones of the sun-circle around it glistened in the moonlight, their golden hue faded almost white by the moons. The impulse arose in me, fey and nearly irresistible, to walk out into that space again, to see what would happen. It took me a very long time to fall asleep.

  16. Living with the Loss

  Amien had been right: inside the temple at Ilunmore, he couldn’t raise power that made any sense to him. He couldn’t rebuild Letitia’s wards. I surprised myself with a desperate itch to try; I wanted to see if I could hold my mind in a way that could accommodate the energies in this space. I had the sense that, if I surrendered to what they were rather than trying to force them to be what any Aballo wizard would expect, I might be able to work with them.

  Amien might well be, too. But the man who told the Prince of the Order how to conduct a working could hope for no better outcome than a challenge to try it himself. I kept my mouth and my mind fir
mly closed.

  In the Precinct of the Consort, Amien tried again. He and Letitia withdrew to a sheltered spot while I tried to ignore the reason why. The privacy was at least as much for her as for him: the crafting of personal wards is a working that must be performed with the subject nude. I tried to study one of the ever-present stelae, tried to absorb the tale of Endeáril’s wooing of the goddess Dana. I couldn’t help thinking about what it would be to let my hands hover within a hair’s breadth of her skin, to trace all the curves and angles of her form starting from her bare feet to the crown of her unbound hair, to feel the energies unwind themselves against my fingers and palms and direct them into a net of safety around her. After the third time I lost track of the thread of the tale of Endeáril and the goddess, I gave up and walked to the shore, and watched the white foam race into oblivion against the rocks. I felt each attempt Amien made, felt the repeated blooms of upside-down power I just knew a wizard could work with if he would accept the way they must be romanced rather than forced; in short order the ideas of seducing arcane energies and Letitia unclothed got irretrievably tangled in my head, and I couldn’t so much as look at her when Amien finally gave up and they returned.

  “We’ll try again at Uriah,” he growled by way of greeting. I nodded, and we returned to the ship.

  Back on board, we headed south, manning the sails under Indech’s direction as Amien provided the wind. For a couple hours, the isle of Ilunmore slid past to our west; the stelae tracing the Way of Endeáril kept pace with our flight, barely visible across the water. Then, abruptly, we passed beyond the southern edge of the isle, and we were on open water again.

  I felt no anticipation for reaching the shore today; landing would mean our respite from Básghilae attacks was over, and we must endure seven days before we might hope to meet reinforcements. The faces of the Tanaan displayed unease at least as great as my own; only Indech smiled.

  He planned to ride back to Arian, I learned: the ship was not one a man might sail alone. But now that he had proven it possible, he expected to recruit other sailing men of Arian, planned to begin learning the ways of the old ships and exploring the shores of the Devadore to see if any of the western Tanaan survived. I wondered whether trade might once again become possible for the Tanaan, and smiled to think of Letitia’s being the reign under which their faltering nation blossomed again. But I left Indech to hatch the plan for himself and turned to scan the horizon for the approach of land, dread turning in my chest.

  Eventually, inevitably, we landed, at the edge of another demolished marina. The once-great city of Uriah, the former Banbagor winter capital, spread in wrecks and tumbles along the shore, mercilessly illumined by a perversely brilliant late-afternoon sun. The only thing standing within eyesight was a sun-circle just beyond the edge of the marina, which seemed improbably intact. Onshore wind sent the tail of my hair fluttering forward. Something inside me sank as the gangway dropped onto the broken stones of the dock.

  “Zhev,” Iminor muttered.

  I turned to look; I hadn’t realized he stood beside me at the rail. His mouth twisted in approximation of a grin; he manufactured a laugh.

  “Sorry,” he said quietly. “Just nerves. I was getting used to feeling safe.”

  I shrugged. “A common sentiment.”

  I looked at the sun-circle again, curious. The stones weren’t as tall as the ones on Ilunmore: man-height, no taller. There were no capstones: this must be a very old circle. But the stones seemed precisely-shaped, at least from here. And they were dark-hued, which intrigued me. I collected my horse and coaxed him down the gangway, then left him to nibble at the green things peeking up through the broken ground of the shore. I wanted a closer look at the sun-circle. Iminor and a few of the knights followed me, discussing the strange color of the stones; abruptly Iminor gave voice to a hiss of distaste, murmured something about seeing Letitia settled and turned back towards his horse. After a moment the rest of them followed.

  My curiosity was undiminished. Red-streak basalt is an unusual choice for a sun-circle, true; but now that I had seen one in basalt, I wondered why no one ever builds them so. It seemed to me the perfect medium. Bright daylight erased any separation between the stones and the long shadows they cast: one flowed seamlessly into the other. I had never seen a better statement of the essential union of light and dark, that truth so deep few even among wizards are prepared to entertain it. After a moment I realized the perfection with which this stone revealed that concept might well be the explanation.

  The circle seemed to be situated for a western entrance: I walked around to the far side and stood for a long moment looking at the stones. The carvings were less weathered than I expected. I noticed Amien standing beside me.

  “Strange what stands and what falls, isn’t it?” he mused uneasily. I nodded and stepped into the circle, hearing him follow.

  The air in here was different: my throat tightened at the wild, dark energies in this space. If danger had a smell, this was it: delights that mundane senses would never experience knocked at the edges of my awareness, begging for me to open up and let them in. Some small, sane sector of my mind observed a second, broader ring of sighting-stones spaced at intervals a short distance away and automatically began cataloging the dates they must mark. Meanwhile my boundaries were melting; I couldn’t quite remember how to hold myself closed. I thought I saw one of the stones move, and turned.

  Just in time to see it melt into human form.

  “Fouzh!” I spat, hardly aware of speaking. I glanced around: Amien and I now stood surrounded by naked, armed Básghilae. Between the inner and outer circles, most of the Tanaan were already scrambling into their saddles; Letitia shouted at Indech, pulled him up behind her saddle as seconds stretched into improbable distance and the knights encircled her. I found myself drawing automatically back-to-back with Amien, discovered my hands occupied by my sword and knife, and wondered remotely at how easily I had shifted into the fighting habits of the Order. The circle of Básghilae closed around us; Nuad shouted for the knights to focus on Letitia rather than taking the bait Amien and I had become; arcane consciousness wrapped itself around me, unbidden. It was a thing I should not allow.

  “Start with the Bow?” Amien said evenly.

  Just the same the shift was necessary. Men everywhere believe the wizards of the Order hold fighting secrets they do not share; the truth is the esoteric disciplines feed the military ones, flowing one into the other like basalt stelae and the shadows they cast. In battle the Forms become fighting postures; expanded consciousness allows two men standing back to back to fight as one. Neither of us would survive this encounter if I didn’t allow the shift.

  And after all, how many times had I found my mind open to the arcane senses lately without doing any harm? I could do it one more time.

  “Perfect,” I said, much more calmly than I felt. I had settled into the position even before he suggested it. But I couldn’t allow myself to wonder at that non-coincidence; the Básghilae were on us and training had taken over. My blades sang in my hands; Amien and I danced together, from the Bow to the Phoenix to the Crane and on into forms I hadn’t executed in years. It should have frightened me how fast it all came back; it should have served as a warning, the onset of that glowing feeling of near-union with a partner in the Work; all I knew was the way we covered one another’s blind spots, the way I parried, feinted, double-engaged for him and he for me was the closest a mortal can expect to come to the union all of us seek.

  And I accepted it as one more inevitability when I looked across my blade to the Básghil I had engaged, and saw behind the ghoul’s dead eyes his maker. Finally I saw how he watched me, whoever he was: how this whole thing had started with Letitia and expanded into something that would become about him and me. How little difference there was between us, in the final analysis—except, some hideous voice inside me suggested, for the fact that he had thrown off his chains.

  I had only to choose, and I could be
the same. Instead I took the Básghil’s head. But when I engaged the next ghoul, the same awareness lay behind his eyes.

  “Fine,” I heard myself say. “Fouzhir fine.” Amien’s blade swept into the space between us, parrying the stroke he was right to fear I’d miss. I compensated for the opening he’d left on his off side with my sword, slowing the rushing blade just enough for his slashing counterattack. We shifted a step to the left, as one, turning on an unseen axis. The pleasure of it caught me again.

  “Come get me, then,” I said to the man behind the ghoul, and allowed near-union with Amien to encompass me once more. The dance took me; the Básghilae became one more fact, like terrain and the direction of the blazing sun, that influenced the steps and forms and strokes Amien and I chose, and I avoided their eyes. I was surprised and oddly disappointed when they disengaged and withdrew.

  For a moment Amien and I just stood, back to back with our fists full of weapons, in the midst of a macabre circle of headless men; the remaining Básghilae rushed away to the southwest and all but disappeared behind dilapidated buildings and the blinding, nearly horizontal glare of the sun. Automatically I tallied the Tanaan: they were all in the saddles, still in a full crown formation with Letitia and Indech at the center, breathless and flushed; headless corpses littered the ground around them. The unreasonable, soaring joy of a battle well-fought swept over me. Amien and I glanced over our shoulders at one another, still moving simultaneously—and simultaneously laughed. That took me, too: we laughed loud and long, throwing our arms around one another with blades still in hand while the Tanaan stared at us from their saddles.

  “Dear gods, it’s been too long!” I said without thinking.

  “Yes,” Amien said, meeting my eyes. And in one of those moments in which shared arcane awareness is very nearly a substitute for telepathy, I saw all his anger and resentment melt away, saw him return to a place in which his student would become his successor and all his desires for the future would be answered by the fact of my presence. And for that moment, all I wanted was to give him everything for which we both yearned. But then I remembered, and wrenched myself into ordinary consciousness.